


It's Just Biology

by IamMidnight



Series: Dark Voltron One Shots (That sometimes get more chapters because I lose control) [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ABO, Alpha Lance (Voltron), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Biting, Dark Lance (Voltron), Drugs, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Extremely Dubious Consent, Knotting, Lots of Rape Talk, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Obsessive Behavior, Omega Keith (Voltron), One character gets a happy ending, Post Mpreg, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Sexism, Suicide Attempt, Talk of Fertility and Babies, Trauma, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator, Vomit, some violence, unhealthy thought processes, victim blames himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-06-12 03:45:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15331020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamMidnight/pseuds/IamMidnight
Summary: Lance isn’t one of those alphas. He isn’t.Keith is the one who makes everything complicated.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please read through all tags before reading.

Lance isn’t one of those alphas. He isn’t.

He respects everyone. He sees everyone as a human being. He knows that everyone deserves life and liberty and all that jazz.

He knows that omegas have been treated terribly in the past. Legally, they were basically possessions owned by whatever alpha was the most direct relative until they were bonded to another alpha. They had no legal rights. They couldn’t even appear in court or own property. If someone raped them, damages were paid to their alpha just like if the alpha’s car had been damaged or something.

Lance doesn’t support any of this, of course. The Omega Freedom Act, recently passed, is the first major step in moving away from this type of life for omegas. It allowed some basic legal rights and the right to an education. An unbonded omega was also seen as a legal human being now. Bonded omegas are a different story and some of the old rules still stood for them, but that would be the next step in the fight for equality, Lance assumes. And, of course, Lance supports the bill, claps and smiles when it passes.  

But, he does consider himself to be traditional. There is a reason those unjust laws came into being a long time ago. It just makes sense to him that alphas and omegas are biologically different and that biological difference matters.

Alphas are leaders. Omegas are followers. Alphas are logical. Omegas are emotional. Alphas find fulfillment in work. Omegas find fulfillment in family and home.

It doesn’t mean that one is better than the other or that omegas don’t deserve to be seen as people.

It’s just the natural order of things.

Betas fill in the gaps. A neutral and stable workforce. Also, sterile. Another reason why alphas and omegas are so important. Omegas need to have children. Alphas need to impregnate omegas for this to happen. Sure, maybe one day Science would solve this issue, but for now it is just the way you have to do it. Lance supports basic legal rights for omegas, but doesn’t understand the whole movement of omegas encouraging each other to go childless or being proud to go childless. Increasing amounts of omegas also live without ever bonding, which is a sacred step in the process of producing healthy children.

How did they expect new babies to be born? How did they expect new generations to occur?

Lance watches statistics roll out about how the average family is starting later and later as more omegas want careers and educations first. The birth rate is also dropping every year as more omegas and alphas make the choice to not have kids. It blows his mind.

Of course having a family is a choice. Of course you can’t force someone to have kids. But, isn’t it natural to want to procreate? To fulfill your biological imperative?   

Again, Lance is _not_ one of those alphas. It is good that omegas are allowed to go to high school and college now. He is proudly friends with omegas and betas in addition to alphas.

In fact, his group of close friends in high school only has one alpha. Shiro, the strongest alpha Lance has ever known dating an equally strong and independent omega named Adam. In addition to Shiro, he is also friends with Allura, the prettiest omega Lance has ever known. He had pursued her for a long time before backing off once Allura called him creepy. Then there is Hunk and Pidge, betas and two of Lance’s closest friends. Hunk had a sweet beta girlfriend. Pidge actually had a short-lived relationship with an omega freshman year. Lance didn’t entirely understand, but he was supportive anyway, ok?   

Because Lance believes people should be able to make choices in life that make them happy. He might be more traditional, but that doesn’t mean everyone has to be. So Pidge dated an omega. So Shiro supports Adam and Allura going to college. All of that is fine.

Lance accepts people for who they are. He wants people to be happy in life.

He is one of the good guys.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It is after Allura, Adam, and Shiro leave for college that things get more complicated for Lance.

It isn’t his fault though.

Keith ruins everything.

Keith shows up one day at their lunch table, introduced as Shiro’s younger brother though they all know he is really a foster kid that Shiro’s family had adopted.

Keith confuses the hell out of Lance from the very start.  

Everything about him screams alpha, except maybe his size. But, Lance himself is a bit small for an alpha so that doesn’t always mean something.

At the same time, he has no scent. That usually means one of two things. He is either suppressing his scent, which Lance has only known certain private omegas to do, or he is a beta, which just doesn’t feel right to Lance. But, he assumes that Keith _must_ be a beta. There is no way fierce, stubborn, motivated Keith could be an omega. No way.

His confusion is fueled further when Keith disappears for a few days every month or two.

That could only mean omega or alpha, absent to take care of a heat or rut. So, Lance finally settles on Keith being a muddled alpha. It is a medical condition Lance had read about in Biology one time where an alpha presents too late and, biologically, sits somewhere between an alpha and a beta. They will still have ruts, but will also only have a weak scent, generally be smaller than their alpha peers, and also have health issues.

Far from acting like a weak, muddled alpha though, Keith comes into their little group like a bull in a china shop. He makes fast friends with Hunk and Pidge. He is instantly liked just because of his relationship with Shiro, Adam, and Allura, the perfect high school students. He is hovering at the top of their classes together, only beaten in certain subjects by Hunk and Pidge. He is immediately one of the star athletes, praised by every coach and sought after to be on every team.

It drives Lance crazy.

Keith is like him, but better. Like a better model came out after Lance is born. Or, technically, before he was born because, of course, Keith also has to be older than him. He is smart, strong, fast. He is socially awkward, but attractive enough to make up for it. It comes off as him being cool and brooding rather than awkward.

There is something about his quiet confidence, his steely gaze, and his seemingly effortless success that get under Lance’s skin. Lance is sociable and well-liked. He knows this. But, it always feels like he has to put so much effort into it, like he is performing. Keith just _is_.

It isn’t fair especially since Lance is all alpha. Proudly presented very early. Keith is just a muddled alpha. He shouldn’t be better than Lance.  

Bit by bit, Lance watches Keith push ahead of him, both metaphorically and literally.

Lance was always one of the top athletes in the entire class even amongst alphas that were bigger than him. He was, by far, the fastest person in the class. They would run relays every Friday and Lance was always the top student.

Until Keith.

The very first time they have gym together, he watches Keith dart ahead of him, both far in front of the rest of the class. Watches the pull of his gym shirt across his back, the motion of his butt, his pumping legs.

He feels flutters in his stomach.  

Keith confuses Lance.

So Keith becomes his competition. It is a safe choice. The other possibility for the funny feeling he gets in his stomach when he is around the other alpha is not an option.

Lance is a real alpha. He is only attracted to omegas. Which, some people might call him small-minded, but he can’t help what he likes and he likes omegas. Their smell, their cuteness, their dainty bodies. He wants a big family with a cute omega on his arm one day. Lance just isn’t interested in betas or, god forbid, even worse, a relationship with another alpha like some of the people in more liberal cities are fond of doing.  

So why did he find himself staring at Keith? In any context he can imagine, it won’t work. Beta or muddled alpha…both are a hard no for him.

So Lance chalks it up to hormones, a confusing time for any young alpha. Hell, he had even checked out Shiro before during his more experimental phases.

He throws himself into flirting with all the pretty omegas at the school. Nyma, Plaxum, Ezor, he even flirts with Matt, Pidge’s omega brother. At the same time, he picks on Keith. Makes fun of his hair. Points out his socially awkward moments. Challenges him to stupid contests like who can chug milk at lunch the fastest or who can win a toy from the claw machine at the mall first.

A weird comradery develops between them. Keith squabbles with him, but even Lance can admit there is a touch of tenderness there. Like, there is never real heat when it comes to Keith responding to Lance’s jabs. Somehow, they become Keith and Lance, a duo like Hunk and Pidge. This is fine. This is safe for Lance.  

He spends years flirting with whatever omega is in the room at the same time as letting himself stare at the slender curve of Keith’s neck. His beautiful eyes. His soft hair.

And Lance calls him his rival.   

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Lance’s carefully sought equilibrium and balance in the world is thrown off in a split second.

Just one second at a random house party. Just one wrong turn taken.

He is trying to find the bathroom during a back-to-school party when he opens the door and sees something shocking.

An older student, an alpha named Lotor, is pushing Keith against a wall.

He has his nose stuck in Keith’s neck.

He is scenting him like you would a…

Lance shakes his head.

Two alphas together look so wrong.

But…

Keith looks annoyed.

“It’s over, Lotor,” he says.

Lance tries to put two and two together, a strange feeling in his stomach at the thought that Lotor and Keith ever had anything together that would need to be “over.”

He doesn’t hear Lotor’s response though. Because.

The smell.

He smells.

Heaven.

Lance smells heaven.

If he ignores the bitter smell of Lotor, he smells heaven. Like the pearly gates have opened for him and him alone. Like the world has crashed in on him. Like he has found home. Undeniable warmth floods his entire body. He takes a deep breath, letting the smell seep into his veins.

It’s honey. It’s food his mother makes. It’s glitter and warm summer nights. It’s home.

But his home is irritated right now.

And being touched by someone else.  

In a second, he is on Lotor, throwing him down to the ground. Everything goes dark. There is a blur of movement, of pain, of fists and screams.

Then he is on the lawn, Keith holding a rag to his nose. Lance looks down at his hands. He had never lost control like that before.  

“What were you thinking? It was just Lotor I could have handled it,” Keith is hissing at him.

Keith the **OMEGA.**  

“What was _I_ thinking?”

Something dark unfurls inside his chest.

“What were you thinking? Coming to a party alone? Do you know how you smell right now?”

_Like home, like heaven, like safety, like love, like everything, like everything Lance has ever wanted and more._

“My suppressants ran out over the break. It doesn’t matter how I smell anyway. I am allowed to enjoy a party and I can handle my ex just fine.”  

Rage fills Lance. There are so many things he wants to say or ask, but what comes out is “An omega alone at a party without an escort? Are you asking to be raped?” Lance can’t keep the angry tone out of his voice, the growl coming from deep within his chest.   

Keith gasps and, for just a split second, steps back and bares his neck. Then he stiffens and visibly grows angry, pulling himself up to full height again and looking Lance straight in the eye.

“Fuck off, Lance.” Then he stalks off.

Lance barely hears him because all he can think about is Keith. Keith’s smell. Lotor’s hands on Keith. And he can’t control the anger rolling in his stomach.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Lance thought things were bad when Keith was a muddled alpha. However, nothing could have prepared him for Keith as an omega.

Omega Keith is a _nightmare._

Lance eventually apologizes to Keith because, of course, what he said was shitty even if there was a hint of truth to it, in Lance’s opinion.

Keith hesitantly accepts. Lance can’t help but feel a little sad that Keith didn’t tell him he was an omega. So, they talk, just the two of them one day in Lance’s room. It is the longest conversation he has ever had with the other boy. He learns that Keith had been abandoned by a family that respect omegas. That he had barely missed being sold off multiple times. That Shiro’s family had saved him, basically. That he wanted to be a pilot one day. That he had dreams and sometimes keeps his omega status quiet because some people didn’t think he should be allowed to pursue those dreams. Lance nods and nods and understands. He does.

After that, things mostly go back to normal.

Mostly.

Except for the many ways in which they don’t.

Lance can only see Keith as an omega now which isn’t a bad thing, but…

Now he notices things he never noticed before.

Like how pretty Keith is. How beautiful his violet eyes are. How tiny his waist is. He is tall, but petite for his height. His eyelashes are so long. Lance doesn’t hate that he isn’t completely tiny and delicate anyway. A strong and healthy omega is desirable.

In hindsight, Lance should have known.

He sees other things too.

He sees how often Keith is alone and it bothers him.

 _Omegas who are alone are vulnerable_ , a voice whispers in the back of his head.

Keith is back on suppressants by the time school officially starts which should have made Lance happy not having to smell him all the time, but instead it makes him worry.

Suppressant use could be bad for you in the long term. Plus, Lance craves the smell he had only really got to experience once. He thinks about it all the time.  

The more he watches Keith, the more he notices and not all of it is good.

How hard Keith works to be the best.

How much he studies.

How he stays up all night before every test.

The dark circles under his eyes.

How sometimes he comes to school without a shower because he is so tired.

How hard he pushes himself physically and watches his diet, keeping him lean instead of soft.

It all feels wrong to Lance. Unnatural.  

Omegas should be soft and comfortable and well-rested. Biologically, their bodies should be preparing to have children at this point, storing fat and widening their hips and focusing on a stress-free life.

He is torn between thinking this is what Keith wants and the idea that Keith may not know what he wants. That maybe he has bought into all this new rhetoric and it isn’t making him happy. That he is denying part of his biology so hard that he doesn’t even realize he is making himself miserable.

That Keith should be curled up in a bed somewhere, eating sweets, soft and happy and well-rested and…

But Keith can do what he wants, Lance tells himself. He is his own person, an individual. He chose this life. A pretty male omega like him would be able to pick from a list of alphas if he wanted.

But.

But…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

There is no point in denying the nervous flutters in his stomach now. 

Lance wants Keith.

He can’t stop himself from staring at him. Noticing every little thing he does.

How he pulls himself up taller when he is around other alphas and even some betas.  

How he sometimes flinches when an alpha speaks too loudly.

How he always gets dessert, but only allows himself one bite.

The dark feelings swirling inside Lance grow and grow as he gets closer to the omega. He acts friendlier to him now that he isn’t a rival anymore.

Now that Lance understands the situation better.

“Are you treating me different because you know I am an omega now?” Keith asks him one day.

“No. Of course not. I just feel like we bonded now that we know more about each other, right? You are my friend.”

Keith shakes his head slightly. “Nothing about me has changed.”

“I know, I know. Don’t over think it. I never hated you to begin with anyway.”

So they become friends. They hang out. They laugh with Pidge and Hunk. They go see the new Star Wars movie together. Lance hangs around as much as possible, making sure Keith is alone less frequently. That any alpha that looks at him understands that he must go through Lance first.  

Lance is still only the second fastest person in gym class.

One day, it is too much. When Lance sees Keith running ahead of him, he can’t. He can’t do it. He can’t watch Keith leave him behind again.

So he surges, one last bit of adrenaline and crashes into Keith.

They are a blur of limbs, a disaster crashing to the ground, flipping over one another. Lance takes a knee to the chest. He is pretty sure he hits Keith in the throat with a flailing arm. They are in motion for what feels like an eternity of pain and hard surfaces.

“What the FUCK, Lance!” Keith is angry.

“I tripped…I’m sorry…” Lance is blurting out.

He isn’t sorry.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

When it is time to choose universities, Lance applies to many different places. He waits until Keith makes his choice to then announce he has decided on the same place.

To be fair, the university does offer him a scholarship. Just, it isn’t the only one that does. But no one else has to know that.

All he knows is that he needs to be near Keith. He can’t let Keith go off to college by himself. Keith can take care of himself, of course, but he is frighteningly naïve when it comes to his own safety. Lance worries constantly that another Lotor will come along, another alpha to sniff around the omega.

He approves of Keith’s choice of school. It is close enough that Keith can be near Shiro, Adam, and Allura. It would be safer for him to have his heats in a familiar place. They are still close to friends and home.

Freshman year is much like high school. They go to class. They study. Lance watches Keith carefully.  

It is harder to hide he is an omega as he gets older. His scent bleeds through even the strongest suppressants. There are comments.

Some friendly. A lot that are not.

He is one of 100 omegas at the university full of 20K other students, betas and alphas.

Keith keeps his head up. He looks forward. He ignores all the comments, from the flirting to the snide, insulting ones. He is so strong that it makes Lance’s head hurt.

Lance hovers as much as he can. He knows Keith wants to be independent. He knows Keith is a strong person. But, alphas are stronger and Keith is pretty and going into heat more and more frequently.

 _It means he is fertile_ , the voice whispers in Lance’s head.

It keeps him up at night thinking about Keith’s smell, how every alpha at the university probably wants him.

Lance knows what he wants. He wants Keith entirely. He wants Keith to be his. He throws himself into a challenging accounting degree. He doesn’t care for the subject matter at all, but an alpha with this degree could command a fantastic salary once he graduates.

He is already imagining the life he will provide for himself, for Keith, for their pups.

The only missing element is Keith wanting that same future.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

See, Lance has a plan. Keith would grow up and slowly start to desire a stable, family life. It is only natural for an omega to do so, even a headstrong one. It even happened with Adam. Though he did graduate college, instead of entering the work force he decided to bond with Shiro, letting him bite him. There is a touch of smugness in Lance when he sees the mark on his neck. It would not be long before he would be having Shiro’s children.

Adam had been a lot like Keith so Lance assumes Keith will follow the same path. So who would Keith turn to when he decided he did want the domestic life? Who else but Lance would be better to provide that for him? A friend of many years, someone who has been protecting him all this time. Someone who can provide, financially and otherwise.

He just has to be patient.

His plan to slowly win Keith over is thrown into hyperdrive one night when he hears a tentative knock on his apartment door.

He opens his door to see Keith, ruffled, a bruise forming on his face and blood dripping from his arm.

He hustles Keith inside, cradling him.

Keith is crying.

Keith.

Is.

Crying.

**_His omega is crying._ **

He can smell another alpha on him and his stomach drops. As he cradles Keith, he carefully smells him. The alpha scent is familiar, but that isn’t important right now. He tries to stay calm, trying to piece together what happened, trying to surround Keith in comforting pheromones.

He wasn’t raped.

He would be able to smell it.

He was attacked, but not raped.

Lance sighs in relief.

Keith gathers himself soon after, explaining how an alpha had grabbed him walking home. He had pulled him off into a park and started pulling down his pants. He had fought back and ended up slashing the alpha with the knife he always carried with him and then was able to run away. Keith trembles in Lance’s arms, opening up to Lance in a way he had never done before, admitting that sometimes it is hard to be strong all the time, to have to be aware and on guard all the time. To have to defend himself all the time.  

That night, Lance awakens.

He suppresses the lion roaring inside of him though because that is what a good alpha does when his omega is hurt. He comforts Keith, with his scent, with his words, with gentle touches.

Keith allows it.

Lance wonders if Keith is awakening as well.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The next day, things go back to normal.

Sort of.

Lance asks Keith out to dinner. Keith declines, politely, and thanks him, pointedly, for being a good friend.

A good _friend_.

It doesn’t bother Lance. Lance knows that Keith has spent a long time thinking he is alone in the world. That he needs to be strong on his own. That he can’t rely on alphas.

Lance realizes he needs a little push.

But first.

It isn’t a plan really. But, when he is at a frat party and smells that alpha, the one who attacked his omega, he follows it. The bitter, acrid smoky smell.

At first, he just wants to talk. 

But he opens the door to a room and sees Sendak, preparing to leave and a crying beta on the bed. It doesn’t take much to put two and two together about what happened.

So he waits.

He eventually follows Sendak when he sees him leaving for the night. Lance knows the alpha is walking to his dorm room, just a few blocks away, but there are some isolated places during that walk. Through the park, in fact, where he had attacked Keith.

Lance follows behind him, walking through the garage of the house to exit, grabbing something he sees laying on the floor. Just in case, he tells himself, holding the item close to his body and following the drunk alpha who sways and whistles as he walks.  

“What the hell do you want, Alvarez?” He finally gets close enough that Sendak smells him.

“The omega you grabbed last week…the one that cut you…”

Sendak smirks. “That slut? He will get what is coming to him eventually. I don’t get why you haven’t done it to him yet.”

The lion howls in Lance’s chest.

“Some alpha will hold that bitch down one day and…”

And Lance makes a decision.

Sendak isn’t even looking at him when he swings the hammer into the back of his head. He barely has time to cry out when Lance brings it down again, square in the middle of his face. There is a pop as he pulls the hammer out of his face and then brings it down again and again.

And again.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Sendak doesn’t die.

He doesn’t come back to school though. Brain damage, people whispered. It is deemed a random attack, possibly a robbery. Apparently, his wallet is missing, though Lance has no idea where it went. He didn’t take it.

It doesn’t matter though. No one saw anything. They suspect random street rats of doing it.

He is in the clear.

He feels bubbles of happiness when he sees how happy Keith is when he learns that Sendak would not be coming back to the university. He wishes he could tell Keith that he was the one. He did that for him. He protected his omega.

He wonders if Keith senses it on some level. Lance is convinced they are fated mates. He can feel it in his bones. Soulmates, if such a thing exists.

He feels attuned to the omega’s every movement and emotion.

It gets bad enough that Lance’s ruts start to match with Keith’s heats. Days spent alone in a rut room, masturbating and smelling a shirt he stole from Keith, crying out for his omega. He begins popping knots and is proud of himself. Only the strongest alphas could knot outside of spending a heat with an omega.  

He wonders if Keith calls out for him.

He suspects he does.

His patience is growing thin though.

They are getting closer to their graduation date. Lance wants to go home, near his family in Cuba. He would like to raise a family there, with them.

But Keith is still resistant.

Any time Lance flirts with him or hits on him, Keith politely declines, calls them friends, and goes back to his own room. Lance feels like Keith is attracted to him though. He catches Keith looking at him softly. Catches him swinging his hips a bit more than necessary near him. It drives him crazy that Keith just won’t take the plunge with him. They have been dancing around each other for so long now.

More and more alphas and even a few betas flirt with Keith. Few of them are like Sendak, thank god. But Lance can’t stand it no matter how polite they are. He understands though. Keith is a prime omega. Beautiful, strong, smart. He would be an outstanding mother and pillar of a family. He understands why alphas are pursuing him with more vigor.

It also puts Keith in more danger.

Lance aches to bite him. The bond bite is the most sacred of bonds that can be formed in a lifetime. Legally, an omega belonged to an alpha after the bite is sealed. But, more importantly, it acted as a block against other alphas. A bonded omega immediately became unattractive to other alphas.

The bond bite also transforms an omega in other ways, prepping the body for children, easing them into their roles as parents and caretakers. Perhaps most important to Lance is that it acts as a spiritual link. A bonded omega could only gain happiness through their alpha and through making their alpha happy.

He had already seen the effects of a bond bite in Adam. Headstrong as he was, after the bite he calmed down. He tended to Shiro with such tenderness now especially since they officially announced his first pregnancy.

Lance dreams of just grabbing Keith and biting him, but it doesn’t work that way. It has to happen during sex and the omega has to be accepting of the bite. It has to be consensual.

Which, is a good thing, of course! Lance thinks as he furiously researches bond bites on the internet, night after night.  

Lance clicks around the internet, frustrated at the thought that he wouldn’t be able to protect Keith. That he is somehow failing his omega. He finally finds a small forum with a few threads talking about bond bites and what consensual actually means. He clicks on them and reads and thinks and considers and plans.

He is running out of time.

Keith is talking of moving to Canada of all places for an internship. They are in their senior year. Soon they would graduate. Lance couldn’t just follow Keith to Canada. 

He needs to be proactive.

He needs to show Keith what he really wants out of life and it isn’t some internship in Canada.

He forms several plans, possibilities. It is an action taking on a whim that gets things moving though.

Keith leaves Lance in his dorm room (omegas had to stay in special dorms while attending college) one night while he runs out to the vending machines for snacks. Lance is casually rifling through Keith’s nightstand when he sees his suppressants, hateful things. Without even thinking, he grabs them and slips them into his bag.

Then, later, he flushes them down the toilet.

A day or two later, Keith, smelling increasingly like heaven, asks him if he accidentally picked up anything from his room. Lance plays dumb. Of course he didn’t. What is Keith talking about?  

It isn’t a huge deal anyway. Keith will just have to go through one heat without suppressants and would be able to afford more at the end of the month.

The guilt is already eating at Lance though by the time that Keith is preparing for his heat. Keith had been on suppressants for a long time. The first time after going off them would be rough. Intense. Painful. Keith would not even be in his right mind, according to research Lance had done.

Lance has seen an omega in heat once or twice. His sister, an omega who had bonded at 18 with an alpha from their home town, hadn’t even recognized him as her brother. Only her mate could calm her down. It is why omega heats are carefully planned. There are special heat rooms, though some omegas prefer other locations. Not everyone could know the location of where an omega would be in heat and heat rooms were basically like bank vaults in security. Omegas are vulnerable during heats in a variety of ways.  

It is his shot, Lance decides. Maybe even his last chance to show Keith the truth. To stop Keith from making a mistake. To get Keith to stay where he belongs, warm, home safe with Lance in Cuba.

Keith eventually says goodbye to Lance and goes to Shiro’s cabin, his normal spot for heats. Though heat rooms are provided by the school, Keith prefers the cabin due to it being in the middle of nowhere in a place he feels safe. Lance says goodbye, but secretly follows behind Keith.   

He waits a little bit, getting a cheap hotel close by for a night in order to give Keith time to fall deeper into his heat. He waits as long as he can, until the idea of desperate omega Keith forces him into the early parts of his rut.  

He drives to the cabin and smiles. He has good memories of the place, lazy summer days spent with Keith and Shiro, Adam, and Allura.

Lance knocks on the door and then walks inside. He is overwhelmed immediately by the smell. He missed this. He holds a hand up to his mouth, savoring the taste of the smell, reveling in it.

_Sunshine. Bliss. Flowers. Lust. Sugar. Warmth. Home. Desire. Family._

Then Keith himself is there, swaying in the door to his bedroom.  

“Lance? What are you doing? You can’t be here!”

He is flushed and sweaty and shirtless and basically a daydream. An angel.

Lance walks purposefully forward.

“Lance, leave! Right now!”

Lance grabs his wrist, marveling at how small it is before pulling Keith to him. He shushes him, easily overpowering the omega’s attempts to pull away.

He tilts his neck, pulling the rigid, protesting omega closer, until his face is close to his scent glands.

“No, no, no, no,” Keith repeats, shoving Lance away. But Lance is stronger. He has only gotten stronger as they got older, taller, more muscular. Keith feels so precious in his arms, even fighting him.   

Lance worries when Keith struggles against him for longer than he expects. His research had told him that the smell of an alpha in rut would trigger certain reactions in an omega in heat, especially an intense heat like Keith would be experiencing.  

Then, just when he thinks he made a big mistake, Keith suddenly stop fighting.  

His body goes slack, relaxing into Lance’s now. Lance sighs in relief and lets his scent wash over the omega, fill his mouth and senses. Then, Keith shoves his face into Lance’s neck, smelling, scenting.

“Lance…Alpha?” he whispers.

“Yes, I’m your alpha.”

Lance lets Keith drown in his scent, the fresh scent of a powerful alpha in rut. Feels Keith tremble in his arms. Relishes in it.  He takes in Keith’s unsuppressed scent as well. It is magnificent, even better than Lance’s dreams.

He reaches down to squeeze Keith’s ass and can feel how wet he is even through his pants.

Lance growls in approval, happy that Keith’s body is reacting to him, preparing Keith for what is about to happen.

He leads the omega back to the bedroom, Keith clinging to his side.

The further Keith falls into the proper omega mentality, the closer Lance feels himself edging closer to his Alpha side. He can barely control himself from throwing the omega down and ravishing him immediately.

He keeps his mind long enough to do one thing. He grabs Keith’s phone off the nightstand and sends himself a text.

Keith: Lance, I need help. Can you come to the cabin right away? Please? Hurry. I’m in trouble

He hears his own phone buzz.

It’s flimsy. Some part of Lance knows what he is doing is wrong. That he shouldn’t have thrown out Keith’s suppressants. That he shouldn’t be here right now.

But what do you do when someone doesn’t know what’s good for them? When they are hurting themselves and putting themselves in danger?

He can protect Keith. He can keep Keith happy. And that is what he is going to do.

He is going to be the best alpha ever for his omega.

After the text is sent, there is no reason for Lance to hold back. He tells a whimpering Keith to stand still and then makes quick work of stripping him of his sweatpants and underwear. He marvels in the smooth, white flesh underneath the clothes. He runs a hand down Keith’s toned, but still somewhat soft (it is hard for Omegas to be truly ripped) stomach. Keith cries out, distress filling his scent.

Okay.

No time for slow appreciation right now. His omega needs relief. His omega needs him. He takes off his shirt, smirking as the omega immediately latches onto him, kissing up and down his chest. He lays back on the bed, unzipping his pants and pulling out his aching cock.

Keith freezes, half crawled on the bed.

“You know what to do…” he whispers. Keith looks drunk, eyes hazy and unfocused.

Then Keith is leaning forward, licking tentatively at the head.

Lance leans back and it’s like every moment of his life has just been leading up to this one moment. It’s more perfect than he could have ever imagined.

Keith is inexperienced, but eager to please and that means more to Lance than anything. Lance is inexperienced too, but it’s so natural how their bodies fit together, how Keith’s mouth works around his cock, how his body reacts to the smell of the slick dripping down Keith’s thighs.

Lance allows himself to give into the thick, hazy lust looming over him. Allows his rut to start for real. Feels the lion inside his chest snarl and come to life as he pulls Keith off him and tosses him down onto the bed.

Keith looks so small suddenly underneath him, squirming, eyes hazy, little mewls coming out of his mouth as Lance licks his neck and sticks two fingers inside his body.

He is so wet there is no resistance.

“Please, alpha, please. I need you, I need it, please.”

He pulls his fingers out and then licks them, moaning at how good Keith tastes. At some point, he would have to eat Keith out, just take hours in between his legs feasting while Keith writhes above him. But, for now, he has a desperate omega on his hands who needs more than just his tongue.

Lance takes a moment to kiss Keith’s sweet lips, murmuring that he loves him before slipping inside that hot, warm heat.

It is ecstasy.

Nothing is more perfect than Keith, than him and Keith coming together like this.

Keith whimpers in pain. Lance nuzzles him sympathetically, trying to go slow. He knows he is big. He knows Keith is a virgin. Some pain is understandable, but he wants him to feel good as soon as possible.

He closes his eyes and fucks into Keith gently, waiting until Keith’s sour scent from pain turns sweet again. It isn’t long before he is moaning underneath him, completely lost in the lust.

“Alpha, please…” he chokes out.

“I’m yours. I’ll give you anything,” Lance answers.

“I need it, please!”

Lance snaps, crying out into Keith’s neck as he lets his instincts take over, thrusting into Keith as hard as he can.

Lance moans as he thrusts, unable to control himself or his hips even when he feels a smidge of the sour pain scent radiating off of Keith again.

Then he comes.

Panting, he collapses onto Keith. It is too soon. He didn’t knot.

But it’s fine. He knows this is normal for the first time being with an omega, in heat, during his rut. The second go around would be the “real” one.

Keith huffs underneath him, pouting, unsatisfied. A knot is the only true way to satisfy an omega in heat, especially such an intense one that happens after going off suppressants. Lance smiles. He loves Keith in all his petty, stubborn glory. He wouldn’t want it any other way.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers down. “I will knot you so much these next few days that you won’t be able to walk afterward.” Keith whimpers and licks his lips at the words.

It doesn’t take long before he is growing hard again, drowning in Keith’s sweat and scent and lust. He pulls back, flipping Keith easily onto his stomach. He shoves the omega’s head down into the pillow and pulls his hips up.

Keith chirps, happy to be made to present, a cute, whiney noise, something that goes straight to Lance’s gut.

Lance wants it to happen this way, with Keith’s ass in the air, mounting him from behind. It is the traditional breeding position of an alpha and an omega. He wants their bonding to happen like this.

His heart grows full because he knows how special this moment is. That they will soon be bonded, for life.

He pushes back inside, carefully, gently.

Keith is ready though, already eager. He can practically taste how much Keith wants his knot. Wants his bite. He starts gentle, takes it slow, maps out the contours of Keith’s back, the trail of his spine, the ink black hair just covering the back of his neck. He revels in the feeling of being inside him, finally.

His mate.

His soulmate.

It feels so good inside him, so wet, so perfect. Just like Keith.

Keith is trembling and pushing back against him, drawing him deeper. Lance gives it to him. He has no sense of time or the outside world now, just focusing on thrusting into the sweet omega over and over again.

He slowly starts to feel his knot growing and carefully pulls the hair back from Keith’s neck.

He picks up speed, pushing into Keith harder, so hard that Keith falls forward. Lance huffs and puts his hands on the omega’s hips, pulling him savagely back into his thrusts. Keith is clawing at the sheets now, crying out with every thrust. Lance is merciless, dragging him back onto his cock again and again.  

He is close.

When he feels like it is time, he pushes as deep as he can inside the omega, growling as his knot pops into the warm body beneath him.

There is blinding white.

His first.

He barely hears Keith’s scream.

Tears drip down Lance’s face and he almost forgets to lean forward and latch onto Keith’s neck.

Keith goes limp underneath him, completely submissive, offering himself up and Lance bites, tears into the tender flesh. He lets his instincts take over as he digs into the flesh, hitting to the core of Keith’s scent. He lays there in bliss for a few moments, still buried in the omega, still latched onto his neck.

He can feel it. He can smell it. They are bonded. It worked.

He had fucked Keith. He had knotted him. And he had bitten him. And Keith had accepted it.  

Keith was his. And he was Keith’s. There is no power on Earth that could change that now. They were linked as long as they were alive.

Lance sobs against Keith’s back, so relieved. So happy. He had worried that Keith would slip through his fingers. That he would never get to feel this. That someone would take Keith first.

Keith is trembling underneath him. He strokes his hair and whispers how much he loves him. How much he will protect him and always be there for him. And when he gets hard again, he pushes inside of Keith without bothering to change positions.

They spend a sweet couple of days making love to each other. It is something Lance will never forget. He basks in it, in his mate, his love.

Keith is so obedient, so pliant. All he has to do is get hard and Keith is leaping to suck on him, to ride him, spreading his legs like a good little omega. Lance tears open the bonding bite again and again, spending long amounts of time just licking it afterward while Keith all but purrs beneath him.

His omega.

His sweet, perfect omega.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

He knows, of course, that it won’t all be smooth sailing from here on out.

He has already prepared himself for when Keith’s heat breaks.

“What…what did you do?”

It is a far cry from the sweet nuzzles that woke him up the rest of the days. Keith is standing beside the bed, one hand on the back of his neck, another clenched in front of him in a fist.

“Lance, what did you fucking do?”

And it breaks Lance’s heart, it does. Keith sounds so betrayed, so angry. There are tears welling in his eyes and his hands are shaking.

“Keith, calm down.”

“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down…you…you monster.”

Lance tells himself that Keith doesn’t really mean that.

“You asked me to come here.”

“You lying sack of shit. I did not. I wouldn’t.”

“Look at your phone.”

“Fuck you.”

“Keith, look at your damn phone. You texted me. You said you needed help.”

He manages to shove his phone in Keith’s face. Watches his face pale.

“I thought that someone was attacking you. Then I opened the door and…I don’t really remember much afterward.”

Keith is pacing back and forth now, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry. I should have called someone else to come out. But the message sounded so urgent…”

Keith is crying still, rubbing his neck.

“This is permanent, Lance.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

He isn’t.

Keith leaves after that saying he needs time to think. Lance expects this.

He knows that, ultimately, Keith’s fate is sealed now. No omega can resist a bond bite. He is also safer. Other alphas would smell Lance on him. Know that Keith is claimed now.

Lance goes back to his apartment that night feeling pretty good.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

There is a loud knock on his door the next morning. Lance barely makes it into the living room before the door is being forced open, almost pulled off its hinges. Shiro is standing in the doorframe, eyes ablaze.

He grabs Lance by the throat.

“You piece of shit.”

“It was a mistake, Shiro, really, it…”

“Alphas do not lose control like omegas. Even if you went there, you could have stopped that from happening. You could have called someone else to go see if he was ok.”

Lance pries Shiro’s hand off his throat and backs off, growling.

“Keith doesn’t even think the text sounds like something he would send. You bastard, you absolute sack of shit…”

Lance had expected this as well or at least some form of it. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Shiro is angry, but it isn’t like he can do anything, really. They both know it. Legally, Keith is Lance’s now. He owns him. But, more importantly, Keith is linked to him biologically, spiritually, entirely. If Shiro killed Lance, Keith would probably die as well. They both know Shiro is powerless to do anything except be angry. Lance assumes he will eventually get over it, especially when nieces and nephews came into the picture.  

Shiro swipes a hand down his face. “Keith has dreams and you have just taken them away from him.”

“I support his dreams. I will work to make them happen.”

It isn’t a complete lie. He is just making some tweaks to the dreams Keith has.

“You know what a bond bite does to an omega. I should kill you, right here, right now.”

There is a flurry of motion and suddenly Keith is there, pushing himself between the two alphas.

“Shiro, stop! Don’t touch him!”

Lance preens at the fiercely protective smell permeating the room coming from Keith at the moment.

“I have to handle this myself. Go home to Adam and your pups, please.”

Shiro stares at them sadly for a minute before finally leaving, making sure Keith knows to call him if he needs him.

Keith turns and looks at Lance awkwardly once Shiro is gone. He is quiet and Lance waits. Now that the bite has happened, he can afford to be patient.   

“Do you even love me or was this always just a game to you?”

Lance is surprised. That is what Keith is worried about? He can be nothing but honest at this moment. “Always. Always, Keith. I think from the moment I met you. I was too immature to recognize it at first, but I always loved you and I will always love you.”

Keith flinches, more mistrust seeping into his scent.

Lance blinks, realizing that might make him sound a bit obsessed. Like the type of obsessed that would lead you to send fake texts and throw away suppressants. “I always supported you doing what you wanted to do though. I always backed off when I flirted and you shut me down. I was content being your friend. I am content being your friend now if that is what you want.”

They are just empty words. Lance would never be content just being a friend. And now, neither would Keith.

They both know this.

“I’m still going to Canada. I am still doing that internship,” Keith says weakly, sounding like he is trying to convince himself more than anything else.  

Lance nods.

He lets him leave the apartment freely, because, honestly, Keith is just in denial. He can even smell that Keith doesn’t want to leave him. That he wants to stay with Lance in his apartment.  

Lance is in his blood now. Seeping into his bones. His body is already changing. Lance can smell it, maybe even see it in the glow of Keith’s skin. It takes a month for the full effects to be felt, but Lance could already see Keith changing in just a day or two.

A bond bite basically forces an omega to prepare for their role in life. They would start desiring children. A home to call their own. All of their energy would start being directed toward their alpha and eventually their alpha’s children. His bite, his saliva inside Keith is already preparing him. Making him more submissive. Softening the hard edges.

His next heat would leave him in excruciating pain without Lance’s knot.

Keith would succumb to it. Probably sooner rather than later. Everything had worked out perfectly. In a year’s time, Lance could see them already living in Cuba, Keith pregnant with pups or maybe even taking care of a newborn baby. Lance wants a big family.

He grins thinking about it. How Keith would glow. How he would pamper Keith with sweets and love. How the dark bags under Keith’s eyes would disappear. How his body would soften.

How he saved Keith.

How happy they will be together.

It’s just biology.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith's side of the story and the aftermath of being forced to bond with Lance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes  
> 1\. Please look at updated tags and be safe  
> 2\. The first chapter was written before Shiro was gay so I went back and changed the relationship with Shiro and Allura to Shiro and Adam. It isn't a big part of the fic at all-sorry if that is jarring though.

Keith leans over the toilet, body racked with dry heaves. When he lifts his head, his vision goes blurry.  He pulls back, shuddering at the long strand of saliva that stretches from his mouth to the bowl. He wipes the bile dripping out of his mouth with the back of his hand and stands, shaking.

Just another Tuesday.

The days that go by without Keith puking or having the shakes or blacking out are fewer and fewer. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he realizes that he is pushing his luck. But, whenever he considers his options, he furiously shakes his head and reaches for his pills again.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Keith doesn’t mind being an omega. He doesn’t. He was raised to be tough, independent, and to respect everyone equally until they give you a reason not to respect them. He doesn’t see why the body he was born with should dictate how he lives his life or how others view him. He works hard and he has dreams. He works even harder when he loses his father, knowing that, in some ways, he is alone in life now.

Other people definitely view him differently once they know he is an omega though and Keith does mind that. From the lack of respect from everyone to teachers no longer working with him because they assume he will just get married and have kids to the lewd looks alphas give him even when he is still a child. It all drives Keith crazy. Being an omega doesn’t make him any different from anyone else. He still has dreams that go beyond just being a breeding tool for some alpha. He wants to be a pilot. He wants to fly high in the sky. He wants to see the world. He wants so much out of life and is willing to do anything to achieve that for himself.

He never quite identified with being an omega anyway, or at least the stereotype of an omega. He isn’t slutty. He isn’t soft. He isn’t particularly maternal.

He is just Keith.

Not that there is anything wrong with being soft or maternal. Society is full of shit to equate those qualities with weakness in the first place.

Life is easier once he is able to gain access to resources to hide his omega side. It isn’t that he is ashamed. Omegas are strong, thank you very much. But, it just makes life easier to navigate. It really isn’t anyone’s business anyway what is between his legs or inside his body. It keeps some of the pushy alphas at bay, confused by his lack of scent. Most people seem to assume he is a beta which is fine with him.  

The suppressants are a godsend as well. They make his heats mild and shorter. He also thinks they keep his hormones in check. Especially when Keith hits puberty, some of those nagging hormonal, emotional responses start showing up more and more, such as the hated instinctual response that he has to submit to alphas or the baffling maternal feelings that start bleeding through into his life. The suppressants make these feelings more manageable and Keith is free to go on his way to become a pilot.

He knows he has to be disciplined though. He knows he can’t make a mistake as an omega. The laws in the country still do not protect omegas nearly enough. He can’t risk an unplanned pregnancy or even anything less than a 4.0 with good extracurriculars. He has to be a shining example, a perfect omega.

So he studies hard. He turns down anyone who asks him out. He lets people believe he is a beta or whatever other conclusions they draw about him.

He works out and watches what he eats. He doesn’t hate his body, of course. He likes the slenderness of his waist, the dip of his hips, his smooth skin. But, omegas did tend to gain weight easier, becoming curvier as they get older. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want people to be able to look at him and know. So, he goes to the gym a lot and gives up the sweets he so dearly desires. It is a stereotype, but a true one in this case. Keith once ate an entire cheesecake in one sitting on his birthday and it still ranks as one of the best days of his life.

Sometimes he watches baking shows just to torture himself, thinking about macarons and cakes and puff pastries while slamming away at an exercise bike at the same time.

He also works on his resistance to alphas. In middle school, he gets into a small argument with an alpha and immediately dropped to his knees with his neck bared when that alpha growled at him. The alpha had immediately backed off and a teacher ran over to make sure everything was ok, but the psychological damage was done.

It drives Keith crazy to think about being helpless just because of some stupid biological reaction.

So he begs Shiro to help him. He needs an alpha, one that he trusts, to help him with this. He trusts Shiro completely and entirely. Shiro refuses at first, but eventually relents especially when Keith lays out the very real reasons why a resistance to alphas would help him in life. So, they decide that once or twice a week they would go somewhere alone and Shiro would try to overwhelm him with his alpha scent or command him with that tone of voice that makes Keith tremble.

Shiro is basically an alpha prime. There are not many omegas who would be able to remain strong if he tried to dominate them.

Keith included.

The first time they practice, Shiro’s scent alone sends Keith to his knees. Shiro is mortified, but Keith assures him it is part of the process.

Slowly, bit by bit, he can resist even Shiro’s strongest scent. So, they move into commands. One gruff command from Shiro, at first, sends Keith whimpering and looking down to the ground.

But, again, Keith is determined. By the end of their sessions, Keith doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t even sweat when Shiro tries his hardest to dominate him. Except for a nagging feeling that is easily ignored in the back of his mind that he needs to show his neck to the alpha before him, he isn’t fazed at all, even when Shiro looms over him, fully puffed up. He can even laugh a bit.

Then they celebrate by eating a piece of cheesecake together, an indulgence he doesn’t normally allow himself.

He swears he will never, ever submit, show his neck, or fall on his knees again for another alpha. Ever.

He breaks this promise less than two years later because of _Lance_.

Looking back, that is the night that Keith made his fatal mistake.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

He thinks that everyone knows he is an omega. He knows Pidge and Hunk know so he assumes Lance does as well.

But, apparently not. The truth is revealed by an unfortunate set of circumstances at a stupid back to school party that Keith doesn’t even want to attend and his ex-boyfriend Lotor.  

He dates Lotor only briefly over one summer. It is a slip up. Another rule he had made for himself broken. Lotor is nice enough. Extremely attractive, doesn’t lord his alpha status over Keith. Plus, Keith is a red-blooded teenager. He has urges even if he denies them sometimes. So, they date briefly, but once Lotor starts wanting to take things further such as meeting families and having sex, Keith decides he has to end it.  

It is late into the night at the party when Keith thinks he should leave. He is unluckily off his suppressants due to money issues and Keith doesn’t like being out in public when he can smell himself.  Lotor confronts Keith though, begging for another chance and scenting him. The taller man is drunk and sad, but everything would have been fine if Lance didn’t walk in.   

It takes less than 30 seconds before Lance is a snarling wild-eyed animal, going full alpha on Lotor. Lotor drunkenly responds, trying to shove his body in front of Keith in a way that Keith recognizes as protective. Keith is a strong person, omega or not, but he doesn’t even attempt to break them up. Two alphas gone to this point are extremely dangerous. Others rush in and a few other alphas at the party break them apart.

Keith had grabbed Lance’s hand and taken him outside to look over his wounds and get some fresh air. Keith dabs Lance’s face with a towel, agonizing that his friend had gotten hurt in a fight over him. Then Lance makes Keith regret his concern, lashing out at Keith for even being at the party as an omega. Keith isn’t sure how to react, not used to someone he considers one of his best friends acting this way.

Then Lance takes it even further, aggressively asking if Keith wanted to be raped with that alpha growl that Keith hates. It surprises him to hear Lance use it for the first time, but what surprises him even more is how quickly he bares his neck in response. How automatically he submits to _Lance_ of all people. He quickly catches himself, but hates himself for his reaction. He promised himself he would never bare his neck to another alpha.

Keith is shaken to the core.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

 

He should have never spoken to Lance again. The second Lance said that offensive shit and, even worse, easily made him submit, he should have been on guard around the alpha.

This is Keith’s fatal mistake. That night and his decision afterward to give Lance another chance.

It is hard for him to seriously consider cutting Lance out of his life. See, the months before that night, before Lance knows Keith is an omega, are by far the happiest of Keith’s life. He has suppressants that work for him. He is doing well in school. Furthermore, he has friends for one of the first times in his life. Progressive friends who share the same views as him. Pidge even dates an omega at some point. Hunk and Shay, his girlfriend, are part of an activism group fighting for omega rights.

And Lance.

The first alpha outside of Shiro that has truly treated him like an equal. Not some fragile flower that needs to be protected. A person.

He challenges him. He calls him out. He teases him.

Keith loves it.

It also helps that Lance’s scent is one of the most desirable that Keith has ever experienced. It is mild, like an ocean, lovely, but not harsh and overpowering. It is hard to find an alpha’s scent that isn’t a little off-putting for Keith. They are too overpowering, overbearing. Lance’s isn’t though. He doesn’t pull the dominating “I’m an alpha” shit that the others do. He is funny. He is loud. He laughs easily. He tries to kick Keith’s ass in gym without going easy on him, ever.

Lance is, above all, a nice guy.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Ok so here is the thing. In another life, in other circumstances, Keith could find himself liking Lance. That maybe if Keith wanted a family, Lance might be his choice, especially since Shiro is already madly in love with Adam. I mean, Keith’s crush on Shiro had been childish and undeveloped at best. He loves Adam and thinks Shiro and Adam together are the power couple of the century.

But Lance is different because he is available. Not that he ever showed interest in Keith in that way, but still. They are the same age and they get along well. They hang out alone. Keith finds himself smelling Lance sometimes and being comforted by the gentle scent. It almost verges on being a crush, but Keith never lets it get quite that far.

Lance isn’t in his plans for the future. I mean, hey, once he has his career started maybe, maybe there is a future with a partner, not that he expects Lance to wait for that, of course. But, there are plenty of fish in the sea, even betas and other omegas. He hears that people are more progressive in Canada anyway when it comes to romantic attachments.  

Then that awful night with Lotor happens and Lance changes. They do talk about it. He apologizes. Owns up to how shitty he was being. Admits that he let his alpha get control of him. Keith opens up to him too. He isn’t sure why. He succeeded in life this long by keeping himself safe. Opening up to others is not a safe move. There is always a risk.

But he tells Lance about himself. His dad. His dreams. He decides to trust him.

It makes it all the harder when Lance starts treating him differently. He is softer, kinder. Not that softness and kindness are bad, but Keith longs for the days when Lance would tease him, challenge him, spike volleyballs in his face during gym class.

He talks to Shiro about it and Shiro tells Keith to give Lance a chance. He thinks Lance doesn’t even realize he is doing it. Shiro also knows that Lance was raised in a very traditional family and probably grew up hearing that you treat omegas in certain ways to be a gentleman.  Keith understands. He does.

It doesn’t make it any easier to handle Lance’s newly gentle smile or soft flirting though.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

He is relieved when they graduate high school, giving Keith a chance to get away from Lance. They are still close friends, but Keith needs some space. Sometimes Lance confuses him. Sometimes Lance makes Keith feel weird. Sometimes Lance also makes him really angry with the way he insists on opening the door for him now or how he tries to pay for him now when they go to the crappy diner near their houses.

It is shortly after Keith accepts a place at his university of choice that Lance announces he is going to the same university.

He runs to Shiro again who calms him down. Shiro always knows the right words to say. He says that colleges are big and he won’t be around Lance all the time anyway. He also gets the uncomfortable talk that certain people, especially alphas, did not like the idea of omegas going to college. That the next four years may not be easy. That Shiro is happy that Lance will be there, a respected alpha, to have Keith’s back.

Keith bristles at this, but understands. He doesn’t like it. He hates it. But, having an alpha near him would protect him in certain ways.

College is hard, just as Shiro predicts it will be. There are stares. Unkind comments. Alphas are bigger, older, pushier. Some don’t think he should even be there, including students and professors. Others think he is the hottest piece of ass on campus apparently. Keith actively tries to make himself unattractive. He showers constantly, trying to wipe his scent off as much as possible. He takes more suppressants to dull his scent. He wears baggy hoodies and buys looser pants. He stops washing his face and stops shaving at all. Not that he really grows a lot of hair anyway, but alphas tended to like a smoothly shaven omega. Keith wears his hairy legs and armpits with pride.

He holds his head up despite it all. He keeps looking forward. What does it matter what others think of him? What does it matter if some see him as a sex toy or unworthy of being here? He had been accepted. He has a good GPA. He just wants that degree that will take him one step closer to the life he wants to live.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Despite a hard transition into college life, Keith does hit a balance. He has a few close friends, including Lance. He works and studies hard. He keeps himself out of trouble.

Of course, when you are an omega, you don’t always get the choice to stay out of trouble.

One night, Keith is thinking about the internship in Canada as he walks through a small park area to get back to his dorm. He is distracted and notices too late the sound of footsteps behind him.  

An overwhelming Alpha stench hits him.

“What is a little omega like you doing out here all by yourself?”

“Fuck off.” Keith doesn’t even turn to look at the alpha.  

The big alpha behind him laughs loudly.

“I like them feisty. I can make it worth your time.”

“Not interested.”

“But I am interested in you.”

Keith’s arm is grabbed and this quickly turns from a garden variety bad experience to a potentially horrible one.

He tries to rip it away.

“What are you even doing in college anyway? You should be spread under some alpha by now.”

The alpha pulls Keith close to his body and distress fills him. He punches at the alpha he recognizes to be a classmate, Sendak, attempting to rip free again before one of the big meaty hands punches him square in the face.

He drops to the ground, stunned.

He always knew alphas were stronger, but he doesn’t even stand a chance against Sendak. It is different knowing it and facing it in real life, feeling the strength difference. He trembles underneath the alpha.

“That’s it, baby. As soon as I am in you, you will be begging for it.”

For a second, Keith feels helpless as Sendak pulls at his pants, unbuttoning them. He panics and freezes, unable to make himself continue fighting. He tries to go somewhere else, sparing one passing thought to the fact that he is happy he decided to get a birth control implant.

Keith whimpers and suddenly remembers the knife he always keeps on him. It all happened so fast that he didn’t even think of grabbing it. A silly mistake. He had panicked and forgotten how to defend himself. Forgotten that he isn’t some weak, helpless omega.

He is Keith and Keith is strong.

Keith can take care of himself.

With trembling fingers, he grabs at his knife, unsheathing it and slashing wildly at the alpha. He gets lucky and gets a good shot at his face. The alpha roars and grabs his face. In doing so, he lets go of Keith and Keith is able to wiggle away and start running. He runs harder than he ever has before, not stopping even when he no longer hears feet behind him.

He tries to go back to his room, trembling as his fingers ghost over the doorknob. But, he can’t. It is one of the few times that he cannot gain control of his emotions. He is shaking, upset, and still feels unsafe.

Lance’s face pops into his head.

Then he is walking to Lance’s room and tentatively knocking on the door.

He is immediately ushered in and held, cradled, comforted. Lance’s scent washes over him and, for once, Keith does not fight against it. He lets the alpha comfort him, takes in his scent.

It is a strong scent, but not in a dominating way like Sendak or even Shiro. It is gentle, like a breeze and Lance is so sweet holding him close and stroking his hair.

For one night, he is going to allow himself to not be strong. To let someone see him at his most vulnerable.

He trusts Lance.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Keith wonders if that was fatal mistake #2. Trusting Lance. Letting Lance into his life. It is what got him the alpha’s bite on his neck and virginity taken in one fell swoop.

In the blink of an eye, Keith goes from a college student spending a normal heat at a friend’s cabin to a mated omega to one of his best friends.

Lance.

Lance who he trusted. 

Everything is so confusing after it happens. After those few days at the cabin.

He wakes up in pain everywhere, his neck, between his legs, little bites and bruises all over his body. He can also feel it already. His body is changing, shifting to recognize the bond that had been forged between him and Lance.

He had stumbled to Shiro’s house after yelling at Lance and he can still see the shocked faces of Shiro and Adam when they open the door and find a whimpering, bruised, and bonded Keith on their doorstep. Everything is a blur after that. Shiro’s rage. Adam going into mother hen mode, shielding Keith from even Shiro. He had read about this before, the instinct to protect hurt omegas from anyone else, even trusted alphas. He dumbly lets Adam tuck him away in a guest room with loads of soft blankets, lets him stroke his hair and croon at him.

Shiro’s barely manages to control his rage. As an alpha, he is fairly mild-mannered, sometimes even acting like a beta. It is easy to see him as being all alpha now though. His anger seeps into the guest room causing Adam to straight up kick Shiro out of the house.

Which makes Keith feel better for a few hours before a thought pops into his head.

What if Shiro attacks Lance?

Keith isn’t sure how feels about Lance, but he can’t let that happen.

So he goes, cringing with fear when he sees Lance’s door literally ripped off the hinges. Thankfully, they are just talking, but he can smell the violence simmering under the surface. He makes Shiro leave and then awkwardly stands before Lance.

His mate.

His alpha.  

He looks Lance in the eye. Asks him to be honest. Asks if he really loves him. He isn’t sure even now if Lance told the truth or not.  

It is the last time he speaks to Lance.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Then Keith does what he has done his entire life. He keeps his head up and moves forward.

He goes to Canada anyway.

Fuck Lance.

He enjoys the new city he moves to in Canada. There is great public transportation. His internship is with a good company that would give him flying lessons if he did well at his current position. The food is amazing. They have universal healthcare. Everyone also seems ridiculously nice, not even asking questions about the fact that he is a bonded omega away from his alpha. He actually quite likes the little life he carves out for himself here.

He tries desperately to ignore all the ways that this isn’t working.

He is losing control of himself. He can feel it, deep down inside, deep in his marrow and blood.

One day, he is jogging through a park and sees a woman with a toddler, a tiny tottling little girl in a cute dress. The woman laughs, holding her child’s hands, letting go just a little bit. The girl stumbles, still gaining control of her feet, grinning up at her mom. The mom reaches back down, never really intending to let the girl fall.

Keith stops jogging and feels tears pricking his eyes. He is imagining tiny hands in his own before he viciously shakes his head.

He runs so far and so long that day that he collapses inside the door of his apartment when he gets home. Panting, and shaking, it takes him awhile before he is able to crawl to the kitchen to get some water and food.

Canada is a bit more liberal than America and omegas work alongside betas and alphas pretty freely. Keith enjoys this, mostly, but all his hard-earned resistance to alphas seems to have dissipated with that one bite from Lance.  A coworker talks to him sternly over something that isn’t even a big deal. He isn’t even using his alpha voice or growl.  Keith still immediately bares his neck, causing the coworker to blush and apologize. He is making this great workplace awkward and he knows it.

He is feeling everything so much more than he wants to. Everything seems so sharp.

There are other changes too.

He can’t stop himself from gaining weight. He isn’t predisposed to being overweight, but he is definitely carrying a bit more around his hips than usual. He eventually has to buy a size up in pant size.

More disturbingly, his chest and nipples seem puffier than usual.

 _For the milk you will use to feed your babies_ , his mind tells him. He cannot deny that his body is preparing itself for babies. For his biological purpose. For something he doesn’t even want.

Or does he?

Sometimes it is harder and harder to tell.

He looks down at his puffy chest and whimpers in disgust.

He cuts his food down more and more in response. He eats an apple or orange for breakfast. Some hummus for lunch. Fish or chicken for dinner. He is hungry all the time. He watches cooking shows now and drools over the carbs, the pasta, the cheese, the meat while fixing himself a salad with boiled chicken on it.

He starves his body. He denies it nutrients. He punishes himself, punishes his body, grinning darkly as his ribs become more and more visible.

He feels like his body is not his own anymore. That it is morphing into something that isn’t him. Like he doesn’t belong in this body, that he should have an alpha body instead. Or even a beta body. Anything but this needy, puffy Omega one.

Or maybe his body belongs to Lance now and Keith is just a visitor, unable to leave, unable to escape.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Was I raped?

Keith types the words into google and feels pathetic and confused. Keith isn’t sure. He really isn’t. It is all so confusing. What Shiro tells him. What Adam tells him. What he knows or suspects himself.

Google isn’t much help. There are hotlines. Some personal accounts.

A good portion of the internet defines consent differently when you are an omega. He scrolls through some of the blogs. The helpful ones just clarify that consent laws are, literally, different for omegas. Even if he feels like Lance raped him, in the eyes of the law, it was not rape.

Keith knows some of the laws are bullshit though.

There are worse results though.

Ones that talk about how all omegas are sluts. How all they really want is a knot shoved into them. About how an alpha can’t rape an omega because omegas are designed to be available, to want it. 

Most of the rape discussion about omegas actually centers on a mated omega being physically forced by another alpha, not their mate.

So, Keith decides, Lance didn’t rape him.

But.

Keith has trouble putting his feelings into words. He can’t even bring himself to think the “r” word for months after the incident. Literally puts his hands over his ears when Adam tries to bring it up. 

Then, when he can, when he can ask himself if he was raped, when he can bring himself to google it, he doesn’t want to believe it.

He doesn’t want to believe that one of his oldest and most trusted friends raped him. Lied to him. Betrayed him at his most vulnerable. Worse yet, bonded him. 

So there is some comfort in the internet telling him he wasn’t raped.

He doesn’t remember sending that text. But maybe he did. Heats are always a little fuzzy, like being sick.

Alphas usually had more control during omega heats than omegas. But maybe Lance just had bad self-control. Maybe he really did black out and wake up to a mated Keith beside him.

Lance wouldn’t lie to him, would he?

Lance wouldn’t have hurt him, violated him?

He can’t, doesn’t want to believe it.

So he tells himself he wasn’t raped.

He clings to this even as he needs more and more pills to get through the day. Even as he starts taking way more than any type of recommended dosage. Even as he vomits every day now and can’t keep his hands from shaking.

Even with the nightmares that keep him up at night.

He can still do this. He can still fly like he always dreamed about doing.

He is still Keith.

Keith.

Not just an omega. Not a rape victim. Not Lance’s omega.

He is Keith.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

The worst nightmares, the hardest thoughts to have late at night when he can’t sleep aren’t the ones where Lance is hurting him. They aren’t the ones where he feels scared.

He remembers those memories too, of course. Lance slamming into him, painfully. How he bled. Lance’s hands holding him down, smothering his face against a pillow. The feeling of fear at being at his most vulnerable and having an alpha show up in his safe place. The feeling of an alpha ripping away his virginity.  

But no, these aren’t the memories that keep him up at night.    

It’s worse when he remembers how much he loved it.

Words cannot even describe the ecstasy he feels every time Lance knots him, fills him so completely, comes bucket loads inside of him. How satisfied he feels curled up against Lance’s chest, filled with his cum with his bite mark on his neck.

He feels so happy when Lance nibbles and licks at his mating mark that it verges on delirium.

Late at night, desperate to forget, he remembers. His awful brain won’t let him forget. Moments of clarity of that hazy couple of days pierce through even his drug-addled mind.

Spreading his legs eagerly when he felt Lance become aroused.

Licking at his cock like it held the secrets of life.

Mewling like a whore when he came in him, again and again, forgetting about his birth control implant and imagining Lance’s sperm ravaging his ovaries, knocking him up with tons of babies.

Bouncing up and down on Lance’s cock, drooling, reveling in how it feels inside him as it reached places deep inside that he never even knew existed. Reading about it in biology is one thing. Having an actual cock nudge into your uterus is a whole other feeling.  

How could it be rape if he enjoyed it that much?

He came over and over again-how can he claim he didn’t want it?

Isn’t it easy to assume that everyone is right? That omegas are sluts that just want knots and babies? That he is designed to want to be fucked and fucked hard?

Didn’t it take one cock inside him to turn him into a mindless animal?

Wasn’t he thoroughly dominated by Lance and enjoyed it?

On the nights when he can’t stop these thoughts, he combines a handful of pills and alcohol.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

It gets worse the longer he spends in Canada, the longer he is away from home, _the longer he is away from his alpha_. He has nightmares, or maybe fantasies no matter how much he tries to numb himself through drugs or alcohol. Random flashes of the days he spent with Lance. Lance’s low, husky voice telling him that “he knows what to do.” Dropping down and licking his cock like a starving slut. Lance pounding him, the pain, the pleasure. Spreading his legs and whimpering for his knot.

He had turned into the slutty omega that he never wanted to be.

And his disgusting body won’t let him forget it. He is horny all the time now. The suppressants barely work anymore and he finds himself spending hours masturbating. He usually can’t get off though. There is little worse than being sexually worked up and not being able to drop off the ledge and relieve yourself for days at a time.

He doesn’t want to do what he knows he needs to do to get off. To think of him. To imagine his knot inside him.

So he desperately fingers himself, praying he can get off by himself, praying that his mind won’t betray him. He even considers finding a random other alpha to give him a knot. He goes for hours some days, crying, begging for relief.

He always gives in eventually. Desperate to come, desperate for relief. Eventually, that face appears in his fantasies.

“You know what to do” that low, husky voice tells him. And he does. He falls to his knees, spreads his legs…

And then he can come. Some relief with a big dose of shame and humiliation.

He can already tell his first heat is going to be excruciating, just as people told him it would be. He already finds himself holding the phone, thinking about calling Lance. It isn’t just the pain of his heat though.

He misses Lance.

He loves Lance.

He hates himself. He loathes himself. But he can’t control his emotions. Being away from him feels like torture in itself.

From an objective point of view, Keith understands the biological reasons for both his horniness and his love for Lance. He is mated omega now. He is bonded. This triggered his body to prepare for having kids, physically and emotionally. His body wants to breed. To start a family. To create a loving unit with his alpha.

Emotionally, psychologically, Keith struggles with this. He loves Lance so much it hurts. But he knows it is fake. Forced. A mockery of the type of love that Adam and Shiro have. Hormones and dopamine poisoning him to think he loves someone who...

Wait, Keith had decided Lance didn’t rape him.

Sometimes he feels like tearing himself to pieces. Other times he imagines himself calling Lance and begging for the alpha to come get him.  

He takes some proactive measures to avoid that happening.

It takes some effort. In fact, it takes asking some particular questions and finding a kind soul at the Canadian version of Planned Parenthood that has a dedicated omega wing.

There is someone who claims they can help him. He spends hundreds buying new drugs in some dark alleyway.

When his heat hits, it is excruciating just as he thought it would be. He downs the pills and it takes off the edge just enough for him to relax.

After that, he pretty much constantly pounds a variety of drugs. Something to help take the edge off wanting Lance. Something to make him sleep. A painkiller during the day to keep him numb. Some whiskey to enhance the effects.  He can’t even keep track of everything he is taking now.

It still isn’t enough. He wants Lance. He loves Lance. He craves him. He can’t stop thinking about him. Some days, all he can do is whimper and hold a hand to his stomach, wanting his alpha, wanting to feel his stomach swell beneath his hands with life.

It is October when he prepares to call into work again when he realizes something that he has been denying all this time. He rubs his hand down his body that he doesn’t even recognize anymore and gives up. It isn’t going to work. He isn’t going to make it. He will never be a pilot.

It is over.  

He can’t even function as it is, even drugging himself to try to be normal.

So he calls his internship and quits instead. He sends a text to Adam and Shiro and tells him he loves them.  

He takes one pill and swallows it. Then two.

Methodically, he keeps taking them, one or two at a time, a little water in between. He just wants to rest without seeing those blue eyes. He just needs an escape, some time away from the horrible prison that is his body and his mind. He feels alone and helpless.

He gives up.

After a while, he begins feeling hot. His chest aches a bit. He feels groggy, laying his head down. His body starts trembling and he can’t stop it.

Maybe he pushed this too far.

 _Or maybe this is for the best_ , he thinks as everything goes dark.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

He wakes up in a hospital, being wheeled down a bright hallway. People are yelling around him. There are things hooked up to his arm, maybe an IV.

He whimpers, feeling sicker than he has ever felt before, looking around for something familiar or even a familiar scent to calm him down.  

Then he is out again.

When he wakes up again, he is in a small room. He feels safe, calm, and happy. He hasn’t felt this good in a long time. He sees flowers beside his bed. He tries to sit up and realizes his wrists are bound to the bed.

He scoffs. They probably think he is a suicide risk. Well, he supposes, maybe he is.

He wasn’t really trying to kill himself though. He doesn’t want to die. He just needed to stop things. To stop the pain. To stop his racing thoughts.

Then, before he perceives anything else, there is a smell. A smell he recognizes immediately. A whine leaves his throat before he can stop it.

_Lance._

Lance is here.

He then notices that a blue hoodie is wrapped around the pillow under his head. It is definitely Lance’s. It reeks of him. Keith grinds his teeth unhappily, realizing that part of the reason he felt so calm and happy when he woke up is because of Lance and his scent.  

A door opens and then Lance himself is there, looking down at a clipboard with a doctor. He nods, shaking the doctor’s hand.

Keith can’t breathe.

It’s too soon. He can’t do this.

So many emotions hit him at once that he can’t even begin to decipher them. Shame. Hate. Love. Happiness. Guilt. Fear. A dozen others fighting for supremacy.

It doesn’t matter if it is too soon because Lance looks up then and they make eye contact.

Keith closes his eyes and drops his head.

He feels fear dominate his emotions at this moment. Not the fear that Lance would hurt him, but rather the fear that he had displeased his alpha. That he had embarrassed Lance.

Keith hates himself.

Then Lance is saying his name, softly, and approaching. He can smell his scent getting stronger until he is beside the bed.

It takes a Herculean effort to deny what his body is telling him to do-to beg for forgiveness, to bare his neck, to prostrate himself before Lance.

“Undo my hands,” he hisses out.

“Uh, I am not sure that is a good idea…”

“Undo. My. Hands.”

Then Lance is doing it, uncuffing him from the hospital bed.

With what strength he has left in his body, Keith lunges forward, grabbing his neck.

“I should kill you.”

He is trying to sound menacing, but they both know that, like he is now, he can’t even grip tightly enough to make Lance uncomfortable. He feels weak and worthless, made even more dramatic by the fact that Lance has just gotten better looking. His time in Cuba since graduating college had been good to him, deepening the golden hue of his skin and filling out the broad frame that had been lanky for most of the time Keith has known him.

If Keith was ever a physical match for Lance, that has definitely changed, probably forever. He feels weak next to him now and he hates it.

Lance doesn’t fight it though. Just sits on the edge of the bed with sad eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

“For not protecting you better.”

The fight inside of him drains. He releases Lance’s neck and curls up on the bed.

“I don’t need to be protected.”

Lance doesn’t respond, but his facial expression makes his opinion very clear. Keith knows it is ridiculous to say he doesn’t need to be protected when he almost died less than 24 hours ago. When he is so thin even the bed hurts a little because he has no natural padding now and his bones feel sharp.

But that isn’t what he means. He wants Lance to understand him.

“I don’t want to be protected. I want someone to be my friend, an equal.”

“Aren’t friends supposed to protect each other?”

“They are supposed to look out for each other. Don’t pretend like you treat me the same way you treat your alpha friends or beta friends.”

“Of course I don’t. I am not in love with them.”

Keith lets out a shaky sigh. He cannot stop the rush of happiness that floods through him. Lance still loves him.  

His alpha still wants him.

He knows Lance can smell it too. He carefully lays in the bed, curling up beside Keith.

“Oh, Keith,” he murmurs. “Why won’t you let me make you happy?”

“The only way you can make me happy is to go back in time and get your mark off my neck.”

“We both know that isn’t possible. You need to come to terms with that.”

And Keith knows it is the truth. Landing cuffed to a hospital bed as a suicide risk is a wake up call.

If he stays in Canada, away from Lance, he will die.

For as many times as he has claimed he would rather die than be a slut for some alpha, Keith doesn’t want to die. He is too young. He has too much left that he wants to do. Everything from flying a plane to being a good uncle to Shiro and Adam’s pups. They are getting older now and Keith had never met them except once when they were tiny babies. With shaking hands, he sent them gifts for their first birthday and occasionally awkwardly facetimes, but he sees the worry dragging Shiro down every time he sees the proof of how much Keith is struggling.

So he withdraws, stops answering the phone when Shiro calls, ignores emails.

Laying next to Lance, thinking about dying, about the reality of ending his life when he is only 23 years old, a traitorous part of Keith asks himself if it would be that bad? Would it be that bad to go with Lance? To be his mate?  

Lance is making small, comforting noises, running a hand through Keith’s hair gently. Everything in Keith’s body is screaming with pleasure and happiness.

But then Keith remembers Lance’s hands, pinning him down, and he shudders.

“Let’s talk this out. Ok? I want to make you happy.”

“You can’t make me happy. You took everything away from me.”

“You just have to look at it from another perspective.”

“Fuck you!”

Then Lance’s hand is on his mating mark and Keith immediately calms down. It feels so good to have Lance touch him. The gentle rubbing on that spot sends euphoric feelings up and down his body.  

“I want to make your dreams come true…”

Keith snorts.

“I have been doing research. Cuba has a flight school. You can’t be in the main program like in Canada, but you can do it as a hobby.”

Keith jerks his head up and looks at him. “With your permission, you mean.”

“Yes. My permission. My money. Everything that is mine is yours. Whatever you want.”

Keith wants to challenge him on that last part, but the hand at his neck is intoxicating. He lets himself relax into Lance.

“We can even take lessons together if we wanted to. If we earn a license, we could take tourists around in the Summer. Or not…we could just fly, me and you.”

Keith doesn’t respond.

“I never wanted to take away your dreams, Keith. I want to help you achieve them. I want to be with you when you achieve them. I want to be with you when you fly. I want to go to the sky with you.”

Keith turns away from Lance, making a strangled noise.

“You would love Cuba. There are a ton of places where we can do stuff. You like sports…you always kicked my ass in high school at them,” Lance laughs darkly. “There is cliff diving and scuba diving and surfing and parasailing…that is where you float in the sky, Keith! And some new thing my uncle got called a flyboard where it like, shoots you up into the sky…”

“Lance…”

“We could be happy together. I don’t understand. Do you hate me? Weren’t we always friends? Even best friends?”

“You were my best friend.”

“Do you find me that unattractive, that unsuitable to be your mate?”

“I want you to treat me like Keith, not an omega.”

“I do!”

“You don’t. Remember when you thought I was a muddled alpha or a beta? That was the happiest I had ever been.” Keith feels tears welling in his eyes.

Lance’s hand movements on his neck stops.

“You treated me like a person. You made fun of me. You teased me. We competed against each other. You didn’t treat me like some fucking fragile flower that you want to breed.”

“Is that what you want? I can compete with you if that is what you want.”

“It’s not just that.”

“Just tell me and then we can work on it. I will work on it.” His hand began rubbing his mark on Keith’s neck again.

Keith frowns.

“Is the thought of being with me really so bad that you would rather die?”

Keith freezes. He is quiet for quite a long time. Lance gives him time, perhaps sensing that what comes next will be important.  

“You have to answer a question for me.” He loses the battle against the tears in his eyes.  “You have to answer it honestly. Lance, you have to understand how important this is to me and for us.”

“Keith, calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down. Just answer my question.” He can’t stop his voice from shaking. “Did you…”

And it’s hard to say. It’s hard to voice.

“Did you rape me? Did you send that text? Could you have stopped yourself from marking me, but chose not to?”

There is a long, agonizing moment of silence. Lance’s face is stone cold, unreadable.

“Keith, I always wanted and still want the best for you. Everything I do is for you…”

Keith starts to back up against the side of the bed, nausea overtaking him. “Holy shit, you did, you did do it, you…”

“Let me finish! I didn’t rape you. I would never do anything to hurt you. You have to believe me.”

Keith searches his face. In his heart of hearts, he knows. He knows that Lance is both lying and not lying. That there is a part of Lance that is completely genuine and doesn’t think what he did was rape. But there is also a part of him that knows what he did was wrong.  

“I wish it had happened differently. I wish you…we remembered it. I wish we did it on our honeymoon. But I don’t regret it. Not for a second. I don’t regret being bonded with the most amazing om…person in the world.”

His hand is back on the mating bond and Keith recognizes that he is ramping up his pheromones, soothing Keith, placating him.

Keith can’t resist it. He is too weak and Lance is his alpha. Lance is in his blood, his body now. All the way down in his DNA. He can feel the bond solidifying, growing stronger just from Lance’s presence.  Every instinct he has, every biological impulse, every atom is screaming at him to submit, to make his alpha happy, to be happy that his alpha still wants him.

And Keith is so tired.

He closes his eyes and lets it happen, letting his head fall on Lance’s chest.

“There we go, sweetie. Just relax. Let me take care of you and you can take care of me. It will be Keith and Lance, partners forever.”

“Can I even go to Cuba? Like, legally…”

Lance’s scent jumps with happiness.

“Of course. I am a citizen and you are my…partner.”

“You can just say it, Lance. I am your omega.”

“I don’t care what you want me to call you as long as I can call you mine.”

Keith rolls his eyes and it feels, just for a moment, close to normal.  

Lance pulls him close. “There is so much I want to do with you, to show you. I will make you so happy Keith, I promise.”

“Will I have to meet your family.”

Lance tenses momentarily.

“What?”

“My family hasn’t been that supportive of me lately. Mama of course has been. But some of the others…they think I am weak for being rejected by an omega. They think you aren’t worth it.”

Keith stiffens. On the surface, they are absolutely correct, especially that Keith isn’t worth it. It is almost humorous to think about coming home with Lance now when he looks like this, at death’s door, greasy hair and skin, bags under eyes.

“They told me to find someone else. Even tried to set me up.”

Keith bares his teeth. It is possible, actually, for alphas to bond with more than one omega. It usually ended up killing the original omega.

“Maybe you should…”

“I am not telling you this to make you feel bad. I am telling you this because that may have been the easy choice, but I am in love with you. It has always been you Keith. It will always be you. There will never be someone who can make me feel like you make me feel. I am so proud to be your alpha, every moment of every day.”

“Even now?”

“Even now. Especially if you finally understand that it is time to let go of your dreams here and make dreams with me, in Cuba.”

Keith is crying again, hiding his face against Lance’s chest.

He is so tired.

Letting go feels better than he thought it would. He cautiously lifts his head, gently kissing Lance’s cheek. He lets himself breathe in Lance’s scent. Then, timidly, he bares his neck.

Lance grins and shoves his face into Keith’s scent gland, licking at it.

Then Lance is swiping his hair to the side and kissing at his neck.

“I’m going to bite you again,” he murmurs.

It is a common practice, especially if an alpha and an omega have been at odds with one another.

Keith closes his eyes, praying that the bite would somehow make him forget, somehow erase the last few months so it could be like a blank slate with Lance. Make him forget every bad part of their past together.

It doesn’t, but it does hit Keith where he is vulnerable. He purrs underneath Lance, squirming with pleasure at the teeth in his neck. It feels so good, so right. He loves Lance so much, his chest bursts with pride at the fact that such an alpha is re-claiming him.

Horrifyingly enough, he feels himself become wet between his legs.

Lance pulls him closer, still nibbling at his neck, scent excited and happy.

Then the door opens to show a timid nurse.

“Sir? I am sorry, but if you are going to copulate with your omega we do ask that you go to one of our special copulation rooms. They are scent-blocked so others won’t smell it.”

“Sorry, we got a little carried away. We won’t be doing anything at the moment.”

“Let me know if you need a key to one of the copulation rooms, sir.”

Then she is gone.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

The next few days are a whirlwind for Keith. There are a few more tests, some paperwork, and then Keith is released into Lance’s care. They drop by Keith’s apartment one time to let him gather some of his stuff and then he is shuffled off to an airport.

Then he is in Cuba, listening to Lance give him a tour of a cute house that is within walking distance to the beach.

Nothing feels real. Nothing feels right. Keith isn’t entirely sure that he isn’t still dying in his bedroom back in Canada and all of this is just some weird fever dream created by his dying neurons.

Keith feels like he has no control over any aspect of his life anymore. Not his body. Not his emotions. Not his heart. It is hard not to get lost in Lance’s placating scent and his happiness.

He is horrifyingly horny too, trapped in a house with an alpha, his alpha, someone he both trusts with his life and can never really trust.

“You are probably going to go into heat, like, sooner rather than later,” Lance tells him when Keith finishes putting away his paltry belongings.  He says it casually, like it is no big deal.

“Why?”

“As part of your treatment, they detoxed you. Completely. All the suppressants. All the drugs. Your birth control implant. Everything.”

Keith swallows and lets it sink in. He stands up, wondering if he could get a room somewhere else. He knows what staying in this house means for him now.

“Keith, wait. Just give it a chance. Doesn’t it feel good to be completely drug free for the first time in how many years? Since you were 12 or 13?”

Lance is ramping up his scent again, hand on the still healing bond mark that he had re-bitten only days earlier. Keith knows there is no point in fighting it. This is what he chose when he came back with Lance. This is his only choice, alone in a strange country, owned by an alpha.

Keith whimpers and lays on Lance’s bed. Their bed. He tries not to think about what will happen. Lance rubs at his neck and floods him with pheromones until Keith is blank. Blissfully, he feels nothing at all.

He wakes up hours later hot, grinding against Lance’s leg.

“Shhh,” Lance says, crawling on top of him. “I will take care of you. I will protect you.”

Keith panics at the feeling of Lance’s weight pinning him down.

He is also uncomfortable with his body, feeling exposed as Lance starts stripping him. Lance growls gently, more out of impatience than anger.

“Keith, you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” he whispers, continuing to take the clothes off.

Keith is afraid though. This is what had ruined his life, had given him nightmares and a drug addiction. His fear spikes as he remembers Lance’s rough hands and choking on his cock. Lance’s weight on top of him feels like a prison, like he is trapped.

Lance seems to sense this, gently massaging him, kissing his neck, caressing his mating mark. Keith quickly gives into his heat anyway, letting the arousal splash over him and pull him under. In some ways, it is a blessing. The bad memories fade and all that he remembers is how good Lance’s cock felt, how he is going to get to experience that again.

Lance spreads Keith’s legs and then leans back for a moment, smiling down at him. He feels exposed, on his back, naked, nothing hidden from Lance’s eyes. But he doesn’t care.  He only wants one thing right now.

Lance has mercy on him and gently fucks into him. Lance kisses him sweetly, making eye contact as his cock pierces into the deepest parts inside of Keith. Keith comes on the spot when the head of Lance’s cock splits something open inside him, nudging him fully open. He is rewarded with a kiss and the sweet drag of Lance’s cock in and out of his body.   

Time has no meaning to Keith as he lays underneath Lance, legs wrapped around his hips to keep him as deep as he can. It is intense. It is tender. He didn’t really remember the first time, just impressions and feelings and glimpses. But this time? He feels everything, in detail. How he is stretched open. Lance’s cock pulsing. How big and strong Lance feels on top of him, pinning him down to the bed. The euphoria as he is made to orgasm. And finally, the main event…the knot. He can feel Lance start to widen in him, start to thrust with more strength. Keith screams, hoping no neighbors can hear him. Then they are locked together. Lance comes so much that Keith can actually feel it, feels the stretch in his stomach.

Lance leans down, grinning hideously.

“You could be getting pregnant right now. Do you feel it?”

Keith cries out, squirming, but he is kept in place by Lance’s weight and the knot, connecting them.

“Maybe when you meet my parents, you will already be pregnant. Introduce you to my family as the love of my life, carrying my pups in your belly.”

There is nothing Keith can do but lay and take it, take every drop so deep inside him that he doesn’t see why he wouldn’t get pregnant from it. Unless he wants to kill himself, or maybe kill Lance which would also kill himself.

He cries into Lance’s shoulder as he feels Lance shudder and shoot more cum inside of him.  

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

“Do you want roast beef or chicken club?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Do you think we should watch a movie or try to sleep?”

“Whatever you want to do.”

“We should buy new clothes for you to meet my family.”

“That is fine.”

“Do you like the red shirt or the blue shit better?”

“You can choose.”

“Can we have tacos for dinner?”

“Whatever you want.”

“There are three potential houses we could buy…this one has a good location, but this is a better space.”

“I am sure whichever one you choose is fine.”

“What color should we paint the nursery?”

“…”

“Aren’t we happy together Keith?”

“…”

“Keith…”

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

See, the textbooks aren’t right about everything.

Not at all.

Even with two babies sleeping nestled up on a bed with Keith. Even after pregnancy. Even after submitting to his fate of being Lance’s omega.

Keith is still himself. He is still Keith.

He assumed he would become a mindless omega, losing all concept of himself. But he doesn’t. Being close to Lance actually clears his head more than he ever was in Canada.

And he is happy, most of the time. There are good times once he submits.

Keith loves being a father. He loves Amelia and Leandro, the loves of his life. Sometimes it is hard for him to come to terms with the fact that they came from him, out of him. But, he loves them entirely and wholly. He would protect them with his life. He would protect his family with his life. And Lance is a part of his family.

Lance is an undeniably good father. He provides financially but also emotionally. He is patient and kind with the twins. He helps with the childcare even though it makes his family gossip. They didn’t think that was an alpha’s job.

Keith loves Lance. He isn’t sure if he fell in love with him naturally or if it is the omega hormones winning out once and for all and bonding him to his mate, but he desperately loves Lance. His dorky jokes. Laying with him on lazy Saturday mornings, Lance’s arms wrapped around him. Watching Lance cradle their children, eyes full of wonder and love.

Lance is his alpha. Everything gets a little easier when Keith accepts that.

Most days, Keith is happy that he didn’t die.

But other days? He wishes he never woke up in that hospital. Or, he wishes that he could become a truly mindless omega and lose all sense of himself.  

See, deep inside him, a seed of resentment sits. And it grows and grows and grows.  

The festering wound that lays at his core that won’t go away. And oh, he wants it to go away. Prays for it. Begs himself to let go.

He is a father now. He can’t kill himself. He can’t kill Lance. He loves the kids more than any hate or resentment he holds toward Lance.

He loves Lance as much as he hates Lance.

He can’t forget it.  

That Lance knew what he was doing when he came to that cabin and force-bonded Keith to him.

Then, he had impregnated Keith only two days after Keith almost died.

The pregnancy had been terrible in so many ways. He was so unhealthy and malnourished that the babies’ lives are at risk throughout. Keith has to try to get healthy and clean, fast. He struggles to eat healthy, eat a lot, get his body weight up, heal his body even as two babies took it over for their own. 

He hates himself for it. Loathes that he put his babies’ innocent lives in danger.  They are innocent. He is not. Lance is not. But they are.

The babies ended up being born premature. Much of the first three months of their lives is spent in stress, fear, constant medical attention. Keith still trembles thinking of those awful times.

He shouldn’t have had to deal with that. Emotionally, he was not in the right place to be a parent.  All Lance had to do was give him a morning after pill or, hell, not knot him. All Lance had to do was give him time to heal, to get used to Cuba, to get used to his new life.

Instead, he impregnated him on his first night in Cuba. He knotted him over and over again, flooded him with so much cum that Keith is surprised he didn’t have quadruplets instead of just twins.

Lance is a good father and husband. But he is also a terrible person. A terrible person who got everything he wanted. Keith. Children. A traditional household. Keith cannot fight against the part of himself that recognizes and respects Lance as the ruler of the household. If Lance puts his foot down, he wins.

So the resentment stays and Keith doesn’t know what to do about it.  

Keith has come to terms with the fact that this is his life now. That he will bare more children for Lance. That he will never leave Cuba.

But the resentment. The darkness grows in him and Keith has no outlet. There is nowhere to turn. He can’t even see a therapist because Cuba is so traditional, reports would be sent to Lance afterward.

But like Keith said, the books are wrong on some things. He isn’t mindless. He has free will.

So, he decides that if he is destined to be a trophy omega and little wife to Lance, then why not embrace it.

He has spent a good part of his life minimizing his omega side. Fighting against his instincts. He doesn’t do that anymore. He leans into his body, his instincts, embraces it instead of trying to kill it. He exercises all the time while simultaneously allowing himself to eat whatever he wants. He fills out, toned and curvy at the same time. He uses Lance’s credit card to buy himself body butters and expensive shampoos. He starts wearing touches of make-up. He buys himself a whole new wardrobe.

He quickly becomes the talk of their community. A true trophy omega. In a crop top or short shorts, he is the best looking omega around for miles. He lets himself be a little needy, a little demanding. He embraces his new position in life, which is the beloved omega of one of the most successful alpha males on the island. He deserves to be a little demanding. He deserves to skip in line at the bakery down the street and deserves fresh flowers in his house at all times.

One of Lance’s employees even calls him a bitch of an omega at an office party one time. Lance fires him, instantly. It isn’t like he lied though. I mean, Keith knows he is a bitch, but you shouldn’t say it, especially not about the boss’s bitch.

He realizes he can manipulate Lance too. It isn’t just the omega influenced by the alpha. He works his scent on Lance, starts purring and biting his lip around him. Lance would do anything for him, for the father of his children.

Including buying him a pricey new motorcycle.

Keith’s days are a combination of taking care of Amelia and Leandro and flexing in public in ways he would have never imagined doing, ever.

He and Lance are basically a power couple now. Lance starts his own company which is wildly successful. Keith knows the success, in part, comes from Lance having a prime omega on his arm. A male, college educated, exotic…all points that, gross or not, work in his favor.

He hated being desirable before. Now he loves it. Craves it. Loves seeing people double take when he walks by. Loves seeing people stare when he zooms by on his glittering red motorcycle.

Furthermore, both his children are showing undeniable signs of being alphas. Sometimes you can’t tell a secondary gender especially when it comes to muddled alphas, betas, or omegas. But, some alphas show signs almost immediately, proof of how strong they would end up being.   

 _Good_ , Keith thinks. He would rather they be alphas or even betas over omegas.  

Lance’s family brags far and wide about this fact too. Alphas are considered blessings in general. To have two strong alpha twins, including a female alpha? Almost unheard of.

Keith allows the omega in him to take over, reveling in how pretty he knows people think he is, showing off his alphas, children and husband, with pride. In a lot of ways, life is easier than ever before.

He can almost forget what Lance did to him. Almost.

All of this almost quenches the rot of resentment and anger, always present in Keith’s gut.

 

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

He stomps into Lance’s job one day wearing shorts and leather boots that cost more than his entire wardrobe as a teenager. Everyone immediately stiffens when he walks in. As the boss’s omega, everyone treats Keith like some kind of queen. Most people didn’t dare look at him. Others are too polite, verging on ass-kissing.

Lance is just getting out of a meeting so would need a few minutes. Keith waits in Lance’s office, looking at the tasteful and expensive decorating and the family pictures on his desk. Several of the kids. A few of Keith. A family shot taken by Lance’s sister. The resentment grows in his stomach looking at all the happy pictures.   

The door opens and instead of Lance there stands James.

A good alpha.

Reminds Keith of Shiro sometimes. Very honest. One of Lance’s best. Exceptional at taking orders and following directions.

James’ eyes widen. “Excuse me, Keith. I need to grab a file, but it can wait if I am intruding.”

“No, James, it’s fine. Get the file.”

Keith watches James walk across the room, looking at him and…

And blushing.

Well, that is interesting.

He carefully does not look at Keith again, leaning over to open the lowest drawer and rifle through it.

Keith makes his way over to James, standing so close that when James straightens up he nearly collides with Keith.  

He can tell that James is startled.

“Oh uh, sorry, I will just…go.”

Keith moves in front of him when he tries to side step him.

“That jacket looks really nice on you. Really emphasizes your shoulders.” Ok, so Keith has never been great at flirting, but it doesn’t matter because he ramps up the pheromones, lowers his voice huskily, and cocks his hips. That is all it takes.

James’s eyes dilate and Keith can visibly see him panicking, face red.

“I should go. Mr. Alvarez will be here soon and…”

“You could keep me company until then.”

James takes a long, shuddering breath and then all but runs away. “Sorry, I need to bring this file out, let Plaxum know if you need anything!”

Keith laughs when the door shuts. Then he thinks about it. Thinks long and hard.

Then he turns on Lance’s computer and scrolls through the employee files. He finds James’ number, scribbling it down on a post it note and squirreling it away in his pocket.

He is still Keith.

And Keith doesn’t let anyone get away with treating him the way Lance did.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am trying to do a kink/darktober fic series. I am already behind as it is Oct 2, but if you have suggestions let me know. These are the loosely planned fics I have already (#1 is already 75% written). 
> 
> Updated Kink/Darktober ideas/prompts/suggestions
> 
> 1\. ABO Omega Lance with Alpha Keith and Shiro doing bad things to him  
> 2\. Lance cutting himself with Keith's knife  
> 3\. Pleasure slave/Forced Empress Lotura short  
> 4\. Non-con somnophilia (Dark Lance or maybe Lance and James, Keith is the unlucky one in this one)  
> 5\. Breathplay gone wrong (likely Lance and Shiro)  
> 6\. Dark mermaid/human non-con fic? (this is new to me so I will try-also, Lance would be the mermaid)  
> 7\. Lotor noncon (Lance as victim) (I feel like this has been done a LOT so I would need to think of an "angle" into it or a way to make it unique/my own?).

**Author's Note:**

> If you have suggestions for dark Voltron fics or ideas you would like to see, then leave a comment. I am always looking for inspiration. Also, suggest any tags I might have missed. Thanks for reading.


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